Last week in the Valley

LAST WEEK IN THE VALLEY

April 20, 2003|The Morning Call

Some of the week's top stories:

ALLENTOWN, LEHIGH

Crime flip-flop: Allentown police officials last month incorrectly hyped success in crime fighting because they made false assumptions about crime statistics, didn't communicate with the officer who reported the data to the state and misunderstood their department's own bureaucracy. It took a candidate for City Council, Charles F. Thiel, to figure out that the department had made an incomplete comparison when it proclaimed that serious crime had dropped 28.5 percent in the first two months of 2003. It rose 28 percent.

Memo of death: Allentown teenager Brian Bahr allegedly wrote a 23-point memo called "things to do when you get a girl in the woods" in February. A preliminary hearing was held Thursday for the 17-year-old, who has been charged as an adult with first-degree homicide in the death of 12-year-old Danni Reese. Her body was found Feb. 27 partly in a creek.

BETHLEHEM AREA

SARS concern: A man from northeastern Pennsylvania who had traveled to Toronto is being treated for symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg. The patient, in the Bethlehem hospital since Monday, is the sixth person in the state and the second in the Lehigh Valley suspected of having the disease, which has spread anxiety worldwide.

On the rise: The estimated cost of the Route 412 expansion in Bethlehem has ballooned to nearly $57 million, a $17 million increase over previous estimates, city and state officials said. Only $12 million has been secured for the $56.9 million project, which is still in its design and environmental review stages, Bethlehem Public Works Director Michael Alkhal said on Tuesday.

CARBON, SCHUYLKILL, MONROE

Planning for emergency: The Jim Thorpe Area School Board has agreed to spend about $2,300 on simulated handguns for the Kidder Township Police Department so officers can practice for a Columbine-like situation in the district's new school for kindergartners through eighth-graders.

EASTON AREA

Unfavorable prison report: A private investigator's report that Northampton County officials have kept under wraps since 2000, denied to the public and refused to show to members of County Council contains widespread allegations of wrongdoing against prison internal affairs investigator Jose Garcia. The report, obtained by The Morning Call, contains many allegations that Garcia abused his power, including inappropriately rewarding and punishing inmates for informing on corrections officers.

BUCKS, MONTGOMERY, BERKS

Passmore hearing: John F. Passmore III told detectives investigating the abduction and death of his ex-girlfriend that he didn't love her, investigators testified during a pretrial hearing Wednesday. They told Passmore after his arrest in Pittsburgh that Melissa Chamberlain was missing and they'd heard he loved her. Passmore and Chamberlain met as students at Kutztown University.